Sunday, July 31, 2011

Navigating the BlackBerry PlayBook With Gestures

When you bought your new PlayBook and set it up, you were forced to learn 2 gestures. The "swipe up" from the bottom bevel for Home Screen, and the Apps menu "swipe down" from top bevel.

However, if you are like me, you probably were anxious to start playing with the PlayBook and didn't bother to look at the help or setup to find the out the other gestures. Using the PlayBook is a lot like golf. Anybody can just go ahead and pick up some golf clubs and hack around but your enjoyment and ability to master the game vastly improves if you learn the basics. The same holds for the PlayBook.

Keyboard Pop – To bring up the keyboard at anytime even when not prompted just swipe diagonally up/right.

Swipe – To scroll through a list, pan across a webpage, move between pictures and more, just touch the screen and slide your finger up and down or right and left.

Pinch – To zoom in and out of a webpage, picture or other content, touch the screen with your finger and thumb and pinch them together, or spread apart to zoom in and out.

Drag – To move an item from one place to another, touch and hold the item for several seconds until it starts shaking. You can then slide your finger to the position where you want to place the item.

Home Screen and minimize apps – Swipe up from the bottom frame onto the screen to view the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet home screen, which will allow you to open a different application and view other applications you are currently using.

Show the menu – In many applications, you can find additional features, options, and help in the application menu. To access this menu, swipe down from the top frame onto the screen. Once you are finished, just tap away from the menu to close i

Switch between apps – You can flip between your open applications without having to return to the home screen. To do this, while viewing an application, swipe in from the left or right frame onto the screen. You can then swipe left or right to move between open applications.

Show the status bar – You can peek at the status bar without leaving the app you’re using currently, which is really handy. This is a great way to quickly check your notifications, see the time, keep an eye on your battery power level, change system options, and more. One of my favorite tricks is to use this gesture whenever I want to enable the orientation lock feature. To do this, swipe in from the top-left frame onto the screen.

Close an application – The first step is using the gesture that allows you to view the home screen, which is swiping up from the bottom bezel. You can then touch the application window that appears and flick up to close the app. You also have the option of tapping the X that appears to close the application as well.

Switch between views on the home screen – Swipe left or right in the lower part of the home screen to change between views such as All, Favorites, Media or BlackBerry® Bridge™, for example.